My Public Comments are directed to those viewers watching on television.

Pitt
and UPMC own approximately 100 buildings in Oakland, an astonishing fact.

Last
year the mayor and City Council gave Pitt nearly unlimited
expansion rights in our community. This DVD of the May 6 hearing shows that the
testifying Pitt administrator received no serious questions, and the
second hearing of May 12 lasted roughly one minute. This legislation
has had a devastating effect on our community.

Pitt has since completed
or has under construction 717 dormitory beds in Oakland.

UPMC executives
want to build a 12-story facility on the former Children’s Hospital
site. I happened to be the only dissenting voice. I mention this for
one important reason: a reporter who wrote a story about that meeting
never mentioned that there was an opposing voice. Throughout Oakland’s
history, many courageous men and women have spoken out about UPMC and
Pitt’s expansion, and have far too often been ignored by the local
media, UPMC and Pitt.

The greed at the University of Pittsburgh is matched
only by its stinginess. The University has repeatedly denied our grassroots
movement funding for an environmental program known as SOUL (South Oakland
Urban Litter). The cost amounts to only $4 of a
student’s tuition
fee. We are now demanding for that funding to be given to our community,
based not on entitlement, but rather on the right to live with dignity in a clean and healthy environment.

Please visit oaklanddignity.com,
Link 5, for information on this program. Then, we ask that you call Chancellor
Mark Nordenberg at 624-4200 to give our community your
support for the
funding of the SOUL program.

We also ask that you contact national media
organizations such as The New York Times, CBS 60
Minutes, or
others, to help put an end to the domination of our community by Pittsburgh’s
two largest institutions.

You have often been told that if you have faith
as a mustard seed you can move mountains. Let us strengthen our faith
and move mountains, and let us together create a new future for the community
of Oakland.